World's Fastest and Most Sensitive Astronomical Camera Shoots 1500 Images Per Second

Developed by British scientists for the VLT (very large telescope), the CCD200 detector is the world's fastest and most sensitive astronomical camera—capable of shooting an astonishing 1500 images per second. More »

Good Luck, Hubble

There she goes. The Hubble space telescope, drifting away from the Space Shuttle Atlantis after her final servicing mission last week. May her new, improved instruments deliver more incredible imagery from the cosmos. [NASA]

The World's Coolest-Looking Observatories

Until they make an actual porno in space, io9s list of the world's coolest looking observatories and shots from the Hubble will be the only space porn in town. More »

Move Over Hubble, There's a New Deep Field In Town

The Hubble space telescope, despite its foibles, is perhaps best known for the humbling, amazing, and awesome image known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). The HUDF, assembled from 800 separate exposures, offered humans an incredible look back at the history of the universe (and no fewer than 10,000 galaxies). Well, another magnificent piece of human engineering, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, played some cosmic Chasing the Jones' this past week when it captured the deepest ground-based U-band image of the universe. Ever. We are so small. More »

Hubble's 486 Computer Blue Screens (i.e. Fails), Repair Efforts Remain in Limbo

Hold the phone, people, the Hubble is still broken. There was word early Thursday morning that a Monkey Island-era 486 backup computer was going to take the reigns and begin mission critical operations, but a day later NASA scientists revealed the dusty old thing was better suited for minesweeper than capturing awe-inspiring deep field images of the observable universe. More »

New Technology Helps Ground Telescopes Outdo Hubble

A new technology called nulling interferometry will give some of the world's biggest telescopes the power to detect Earth-like planets outside our solar system—something even the Hubble has not accomplished. Basically, nulling interferometry chains together the light captured by several large telescopes to create a single "super telescope" that has enough power to detect a quarter lying on the surface of the moon. Currently, an array of telescopes in Chile's Atacama Desert known as the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) is being outfitted with a nulling device called PRIMA. More »

First Historic Image of Planet 3106 Trillion Miles From Earth

Thanks to the distortion-reducing power of the ALTAIR adaptive optics system on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, three University of Toronto scientists were able to capture images of the star 1RXS J160929.1-210524 from a distance of about 500 light years away. The image is believed to be the first ever of a planet in an alien solar system around a sun-like star. The discovery is made even more significant because the "planet" lies a tremendous distance away from its parent star—challenging currently accepted theories about star and planet formation. It will take up to 2 years of research to determine whether or not this object is, in fact, tied to the star by gravity. [Gemini via ScienceNews via DVICE]

NASA to Build Giant Telescopes Made of Moon...on the Moon?

NASA researchers claim they've developed a way to create a concrete-like substance, necessary for the production of space telescopes, out of Moon dust. The compound mixes the aforementioned Moon dust with carbon tubes and epoxy to create a dish, which is then coated in aluminum. The researchers have built a 30cm dish using this technique with a moon dust subsitute, but they claim they can create ones between 20-50 meters that would fill entire craters. This claim, however, has its share of detractors. More »

Massive Steampunk-y Telectroscope Lets You See From New York to London

The Telectroscope is more than a giant telescope—looking through its lens in NYC, you can see all the way to London—and vice versa. These steampunk creations were unveiled today in the two cities to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. Artist Paul St George's Victorian-style gold and wood trim make the behemoth-size scopes impressive to look at, but the most amazing part is how he claims they work. More »